So I have not been out whale watching as much as I would have liked on this northern migration, so I decided to head out again with an operator here on the New South Wales on the central coast Fantasea Crusing. This cruise was for 2.5 hours with the pick up being at Ettalong and dropping of at Palm Beach in the northern beaches of Sydney with another ferry trip back to Ettalong.
The weather was perfect for whale watching, nice clear skies and a very calm ocean.
To start off as we are heading back out to the open ocean there were some people kayaking and surfing one of the local sand bars as we left the sheltered water around Ettalong beach and the other beachside towns .
We then headed out to the open ocean on the lookout for migrating humbpack whales and finding a pair fairly quickly, they were just cruising north and were not really active and long dive times.
We then spotted a breaching whale off in the distance and headed across to observe. This whale put on a great display of breaching with at least 15 breaches in the time we were watching.
After all the acrobatics that this whale displayed, it decided to keep heading north on its annual migration to the breeding grounds in the tropics.
On our way back to Palm Beach we stopped to observe some Australian fur seals hauled out on Barrenjoey point.
Heading back to Ettalong I took the opportunity to photograph Barrenjoey lighthouse.
Also a of yacht that was out for a sail.
In all I estimate we saw around 20 whales in different pods heading north which is great as we are getting towards the end of the northern migration.
All in all I had a great day out on the water and photographing these fantastic animals.
Cheers till my next blog
DK
Whale Tail Photography 